Spurred on by a comment recently from Melissa, I decided to just crack on last night with sewing with jersey.
Lily pretty much lives in leggings. They're easy for her to get on and off herself, which is hugely important at the moment because she's just out of nappies and is fiercly independent about going to the bathroom by herself. Plus they look good with everything and don't restrict her when she's running, jumping, climbing and dancing.
Which means of course that she also wears out many pairs of leggings, so it makes complete sense to make my own. Especially as it means that I can not only use up some of my ever growing jersey mountain and conquer a sewing fear, but also make her some leggings that have a little more personality than the boring ones available at Mothercare.
I started with a pattern based on an existing pair of leggings (just traced over them) and had a trial run with some thicker, slightly less stretchy jersey, before cutting in to this Patty Young jersey knit that I picked up on sale recently from Fabric.com .
I used a coverstitch on my sewing machine to make the leggings - I don't have an overlocker and wouldn't know what to do with it even if I did. I am lucky enough though to have the use of a fairly high tec Pfaff sewing machine. And I found that the combination of using the right stitch with the right needle made sewing with jersey very straight forward. The only thing I did find was that I had to fight the temptation to pull the fabric through, because jersey feeds throughso much slower than cotton and I found myself becoming impatient.
I sewed the leather patches on before sewing the seams and simply switched to a leather needle ( making sure you use the right needle is extremely important - you can read about all the different types here).
I made this top for Lily this morning, to go with the leggings (not in any kind of matchy way, just because I wanted her to have something new to wear with them) out of a Liberty print that I bought on my birthday.
I actually intended it to be more of a dress or tunic length, but totally misjudged the sizing. I couldn't get a shot of it on a hanger because Lily wouldn't take it off, but it's got an elasticated bottom that sits at the top of her legs when pulled down straight.
I always feel that I learn the most from sewing clothes. I think that with most other types of sewing you can fudge it a little bit if you're not sure what you're doing. But the very nature of clothing and the fact the it needs to fit properly and wear well, means that things have to be done the right way. And I like that. I really enjoy the process of learning how to do it right. Not that I'm getting it quite right yet, but I'm definitely getting more confident.
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And finally.... the winner of the bag of felt scraps is......
Lucy (The Project Lab)
"Ummm yummy! Gorgeous colours and excellent quality. What's not to love!? Please enter me in the giveaway :)"
Congratulations Lucy! If you email me your address I'll get the felt in the post to you.
